Tim shares how we got to this hodgepodge Jackie O-no-they-didn't challenge.

I really thought Tim Gunn would spend his entire “Project Runway”Episode 8 vlog gushing over Mondo Guerra and making me feel even more out-of-it for not liking his look.

***Sept. 21 update: For whatever reason, the video has now disappeared from Tim’s Facebook fan page. Weird!It’s the same situation with the link on Blogging Project Runway’s vlog story.Tim does mention names of individual “uber” executive producers in the vlog, so maybe that’s why they pulled the video — since they don’t have the same outlet to share their sides of the story.***

Tim does gush over Mondo, but briefly. He spends most of his 12 minute vlog bashing the producers for the ever-changing structure of the Jackie Kennedy (he was forbidden to add “Onassis”) challenge.

Tim started by returning to last week’s team challenge, just to mention that it was the beginning of his frustration with the structure of the PR Season 8 challenges.

This one gets even weirder.

Tim gets into details on his vlog, but the challenge started out as “classic American sportswear” with a twist: They would be designing classic American sportswear from their own point of view.

Tim argued with one of the producers, logically, that there’s no reason why they wouldn’t be designing from their own point of view to begin with.

(He said this producer got frustrated with him, as if he were being difficult to point out the confusion.)

So Tim went to one of the executive producers (he gave her name but I didn’t note it) for details. She told Tim, in confidence, that the challenge was going to be a “classic American sportswear” design to be worn by Katie Holmes as Jackie Kennedy in the History Channel miniseries “The Kennedys.”

Tim said that information had to come out. The designers had to be told this so they knew they had to design period wear.

Then they decided to change the challenge to be about dance wear. But when Tim showed up to the dance studio there was no one there. No one knew where he should go and Tim said that was emblematic of the entire season.

He finally got the new address and he thought he would be meeting Tango or Cha-Cha-Cha people. Instead there was a wall of Jackie Kennedy iconography.

Tim: “Look, I’m not an idiot. The whole notion that we would even associate Jackie Kennedy with American sportswear is a stretch. I was about to say preposterous, but it’s really a stretch.”

(Yes! That’s what I thought.)

Tim and Gretchen were "partners" this week and he even thanked her.

The morning of the challenge they still didn’t have a twist. The biopic History Channel/Katie Holmes idea went away. The new idea was American sportswear for Jackie Kennedy as if she were alive today and vibrant, not in the 1960s.

It was going to be a two-piece look, the twist being that they had to design outerwear.

Tim said it was interesting to see that the words “two-piece look” did not come out of his mouth on air before going to Mood. (He also thanked Gretchen for being his partner and helping the designers understand the challenge. So Tim vs. Gretchen appears to be over.)

When it came to judging and the judges were doing their Q&A, they were holding dossiers that had images of Jackie frozen in 1960. They kept saying Jackie wouldn’t wear this or that.

Tim: “I couldn’t stand it any longer!”

He pulled a Kanye and stepped into the judges’ circle to tell the judges that they needed to be aware of what he told the designers about updating her look to today. You have to think about the fashion revolutions and fast-forward 50 years. Where would she be aesthetically today?

He also mentioned something about Nina Garcia trying to interrupt him with “but… but…” but he cut her off. When he finally left the judges’ circle he thinks they wanted to put him in a straitjacket.

On Michael Drummond’s elimination, Tim said he did something with Michael D. that he does not normally do: When he told MD that he (“old fart”) did not like his skirt, he also invoked the opinions of the other designers. They also disliked MD’s skirt, but he went ahead with it anyway.

Back to Mondo. When Tim first saw Mondo’s textiles he loved them. And Tim feels that Mondo did channel Jackie in the most wowing way.

Tim: “No one was happier than I that he won. I was just so thrilled, thrilled, thrilled for him. So, judges, for that decision I salute you. But for everything else, get your own straitjacket. Truly.”

9 comments

Thank you for posting this! I am so mad that I didn’t see the vlog before it mysteriously disappeared. Love, love LOVE Tim! He is the only steadfast voice of reason on the show and if he ever leaves I swear I’ll stop watching.

This explains all of the confusion of the last episode. American sportswear + Jacqueline Kennedy? It made absolutely no sense, and seeing what some of the designers came up with it, it was clear they were confused too.